Category: The Accidental CFO
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The Accidental CFO — Profitable and Broke
“Stories and lessons from an unexpected journey in finance.” EBITDA is the only financial metric named entirely after the things it ignores. Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. The name is a list of exclusions. That’s not a criticism — it’s the whole design, and forgetting it is how people get into trouble. Here’s…
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The Accidental CFO — The Accidental Factory
“Stories and lessons from an unexpected journey in finance.” Here is the number that should worry you. Gartner presented data this year showing 84% of finance AI spend goes to individual productivity and process improvement. Only 16% goes to anything that materially changes a business outcome. Their diagnosis is the part that stuck with me.…
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The Accidental CFO — The Gift Card in Your Drawer
“Stories and lessons from an unexpected journey in finance.” There’s a gift card in a drawer in your house right now. Probably more than one. Somebody paid real money for it. The store already has that money. And the store is not allowed to call it revenue. That’s deferred revenue, and it’s one of the most…
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The Accidental CFO — Last Year, Plus a Percent
“Stories and lessons from an unexpected journey in finance.” Open most budget submissions and you’ll find the same thing underneath: last year, plus a percent. Not because the business units are lazy. Because nobody told them what the plan has to achieve, so they defaulted to the only defensible number available. That’s a sequencing failure,…
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The Accidental CFO — Stop Giving the Board One Number
“Stories and lessons from an unexpected journey in finance.” Tuesday I argued the planning cycle should take three weeks, not three months. The line that got the most pushback on Tuesday was this one: take it to the board as a range, not a point. Here’s why that matters more than it sounds. When you…
